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By RYAN LANCASTER
Staff Reporter
Last week the Airway Heights City Council and the Board of Spokane County Commissioners each approved an agreement to trade county land for city utilities infrastructure and treated wastewater.
A memorandum of understanding more than two years in the making gives the city about 70 acres adjacent to Spokane County Raceway along with first right of refusal to an additional 26.81 acres nearby. The county will assist the city in completing master planning for a sports complex and parkland on the property. Each party's estimated value of contributions to the exchange equals $1,044,231.
The county will also provide design documents and a utility easement to Airway Heights for construction of sewer water infrastructure to the raceway property. City attorney Stanley Schwartz said city engineers assured him the utilities infrastructure work can be completed within the designated timeline of within one year of written request by the county or no later than 2014.
City leaders have said the extension of utilities to the Raceway is expected to impact residents' water bills very little – raising rates by approximately 50 cents over the course of the next seven years for a single family home. Sewer rates are not expected to change due to the project.
The city will now weigh when and how the property can be developed into ball fields and other recreational areas, possibly including an RV park or fitness center. During the public comments portion of last week's meeting Airway Heights park advisory board president Mary Henson said after much discussion with city staff, board members were “convinced of the city's intent” for the new property and unanimously voted to go along with city plans.
Those plans include using the site as an underground reservoir to store reclaimed water from the city's wastewater treatment facility, which is scheduled for completion in 2012.
Earlier this month Airway Heights City Manager Albert Tripp said more study is needed, but preliminary engineering shows the site would support water percolation into the aquifer with limited run off. In winter months a water main would distribute all treated wastewater to a 30-acre network of smaller pipes buried 8-10 feet beneath the surface, which Tripp said would continually release small amounts of the water into the aquifer.
In the summer about 70 percent of the wastewater would be used to recharge the aquifer and 30 percent would be sold around the region.
The agreement also stipulates that half of the city's raceway admission tax will be shared with the county for Airway Heights-sanctioned improvements of the property. The admission tax pledge terminates if the county sells the park or 20 years from the date of the agreement.
Another item specified by the contract is that no raceway property will be assigned as “a jail, detainment facility or otherwise for the incarceration, rehabilitation, training or to provide services to persons charged with, suspected of or found to have committed criminal or civil offenses,” purposes the county was at one time considering for the property.
Ryan Lancaster can be reached at [email protected].
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